BINGHAMTON — It was a flawless wrestling performance by Lucas Malmberg.
The Marathon Central senior was the top seed heading into the Section 4 Division II Championships and he was dominating over the two-day event inside the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena in Binghamton.
Malmberg was a perfect 4-0 in winning the 106-pound championship and improves his season record to 43-2. It is Malmberg’s second straight sectional title and he will now look to repeat as a state champion in Albany Feb. 24-25.
He won his sectional and state titles at the 96-pound weight class last year.
“Lucas went through both days without a point scored on him,” Marathon coach Jamie Bush said, Malmberg the first wrestler in school history to win two sectional titles. “That is something he takes pride in and works on every day at practice. He wrestled great this weekend and dominated his opponents in all four matches.”
In Saturday night’s championship match, Malmberg rolled to a 12-0 major decision over Whitney Point’s Sean Ballard.
In the morning, Malmberg was a 7-0 victor in the semifinals over Brendan Wheeler of Greene.
Both of Malmberg’s Friday wins were by pin. His shortest match was the pin of Deposit’s Brandon Macumber in just 29 seconds in the preliminary round. It took 4:24 in the quarterfinals for Malmberg to stick Harpursville’s Jake Andrews.
Olympian junior Dillon Hurlbert made a strong showing as well. Hurlbert posted a 4-1 record and now stands at 38-6 after a 5-1 decision over Windsor’s Matt Abbott in the consolation finals at 220 pounds.
Hurlbert’s lone loss in the tournament came to the division champion, Kyle Stanton of Greene taking a 14-0 decision.
“Dillon wrestled some very quick matches and a couple six minute matches,” Bush said, “Stanton came out very strong. Dillon was a bit stunned and found himself down 8-0 early. He battle hard and pushed the action and Stanton scored off a lot of our actions and moves. He isn’t ranked number one in the state for nothing and he showed us why.
“Dillon bounced back with two wins and battle for a third place finish,” he added. “The match with Matt Abbott was his best match of the tournament and a nice win to finish out the season.”
Bush did say that Hurlbert could receive a wild card entry into this year’s tournament, but that decision won’t come for a few days.
As for the other Marathon wrestlers, senior Tyler Hall (39-2) went 2-2 at 126 pounds. Hall finishes his career with 144 wins.
Senior Christian Seyerle (22-11) and junior Andrew Gillette each went 1-2 at 285 pounds while sophomore Tim Larkin was 0-2 at 145.
— Dryden High’s Kraig Parker exceeded expectations at 285 pounds.
The Purple Lion senior was the seventh seed, but Parker went all the way to the championship final where he got pinned by Owego’s James Merritt at the 1:39 mark.
Parker was 3-1 on the day with three pinfalls.
He reached the finals when he pinned Sidney’s Austin Dean at the 3:05 mark in the semifinal round.
Seniors Kurt Parker and Casey Marquis each lost in Friday’s preliminary round.
Parker wrestled at 152 while Marquis competed at 170.
— Groton had four competitors in the Division II Tournament with Darren Ostrander the only Indian win to a match.
The freshman won his preliminary round match at 120 pounds, but fell after the quarterfinals.
Senior Chad Weldon (170), senior Levi George (220) and junior Isaac Wright (285) all lost in the preliminaries Friday.